What May Be
by moonswirl
Summary: Gleekathon, day 1607: In two weeks' time, Chloe's time in New York and Rachel Berry's workshop will come to an end, and there is so much for her to remember. - Red series


_Started my daily ficlets to make the hiatus pass, then decided to keep going with a 2nd cycle, and then a 3rd, 4th, etc through 76th cycle. Now cycle 77!_

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**"What May Be"  
(Older) Rachel, Sophie (OC), Chloe (OC)  
Red series  
_(no listings yet; sequel to 'To Taking Chances')_  
**

She could close her eyes to this day and remember exactly what she'd felt like on that first day walking into Rachel Berry's workshop, and now here she was, with only two weeks left. Time went by so fast that she didn't know if she'd see those weeks pass and then it would all be over.

Chloe had already been seeing it in everyone's faces, they were all getting ready for what it would mean when the last day had passed.

Her friends, Tara, and Eva, and Marcus, would be spread to the winds, going back to their own lives, their own cities, which could result in her not seeing them again for weeks, months, years, if ever… For all she knew, they would fall out of touch. They'd say they'd keep in contact, sure, and they might for a while, but then the day would come, sneaking up on all of them, where suddenly they weren't thinking about each other anymore.

_No, that won't be us._ She had to be optimistic, otherwise she might as well be saying so long to all of them while she had the chance, and then what would that say about the friendship they'd made together? She was going to go on the side of hope. Yes. They would stay friends, why shouldn't they?

She wouldn't have pegged Eva for being the most emotional of their group, but then Chloe had caught her once or twice, looking at her or the others or the workshop in general with this air of sadness so heavy on her that she might start to cry at any moment. She would do her best to hide it, to act like there was nothing wrong, but Chloe could see right through her, and she expected Tara and Marcus did, too.

What time she had left with George she made sure not to waste. They would make enough memories together to be able to hold on to while they were apart. They took exploring New York City to whole other level, making it a point that their dates should be different, both from dates in general and from one date as opposed to the next. Then there would be those nights when they decided just to hang out, to talk and find out more about each other. And, sure, there were also those moments when all they wanted to do was kiss and hold each other, but for now that was as far as it would get.

All this time, ever since she'd met him and she'd started to like him, to want to go out with him, her one issue had been that sooner or later they would be separated, and she was scared of what that would do. She was still scared now, but then maybe it was being in the workshop, having all this time with him, that started to build this idea in her that they could do this… or it was telling her that the only reason she was afraid was that they saw each other all the time, and she didn't know what it would be like when he wouldn't be minutes away anymore. That was bound to freak anyone out.

Once they'd started going out, Chloe had believed that he would be the hardest thing for her to say goodbye to, but the closer they got to the end, the more she knew that wasn't true. More than George, she was going to miss the ones who'd opened up their home to her throughout this summer.

She was always going to have this space in between her and Rachel Berry, as well she should, but when it came to Sophie, Chloe knew deep down she wasn't alone in seeing this friendship they had as being closer to sisterhood than anything she had ever experienced in her life. She could have carried this hurt in her over the whole snooping and prying into her father's identity thing, but that whole thing was in the past now, and now she saw it more as Sophie – and Rachel, too – having done her a favor. If she hadn't done it, Chloe would have gone back to Indiana, still with the illusion that somehow her father corresponded to the image she'd made of him in her head, when he was far from that.

But Sophie, she'd taken her under her wing, treated her as family from day one. Chloe had always known her to be perfectly real, constantly honest… again, except for the father thing, but Chloe would refer to this as 'special circumstances.' She was already planning to come over to Indiana to visit her, and she insisted that if ever she wanted to come up for a visit back in New York, she would be welcome to her room again.

As gracious of an offer as that was, Chloe hadn't allowed herself to believe it until she had it right from her idol herself. Rachel had extended that same offer, and after that, Chloe was just about beside herself with emotion.

She remembered reading this thing about not meeting one's idols, but then if that was the case, then where did Rachel Berry fit in? Of all the pictures Chloe had made up for herself in her mind about what the woman would be like in real life, actually getting to know her made every last one of those look like stick figure drawings. The real thing, the actual Rachel, was everything she could have wanted her to be and more. She remembered the day she had first met her, when she'd caught her staring and called her over. She'd been so thunderstruck that it had all been over by the time she really processed what she'd just done. And when she'd seen her again, at Nationals, she'd been so amazed that the woman actually remembered her…

Rachel Berry had been exactly who Chloe had needed her to be, and this was not achieved by any means of deception and lies. This was not to say she didn't have her faults, but she assumed them, and that was something Chloe loved about her. She knew that, when the workshop would be done, she would return home at once thrilled for what she'd experienced and saddened that it had to come to an end. But most of all, she would miss waking up in the morning, knowing that the woman she aspired to be lived within the same walls.

THE END

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****A/N: This is a one-shot ficlet, which means that signing up for story alert will not bring you any alerts.  
****In the event of a sequel, the story will be separate from this one. And as chapter stories go, they are  
********always clearly indicated as such [ex: "Days 204-210" in the summary] Thank you!********


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